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THE EXPERIENCE

I was just about to fall to sleep when suddenly I became aware of movement. 

I felt unsettled and disturbed from my rest and drift into sleep. Against my expectation, I was shifted in emotion for no seeming reason. Alerted and surprised, I awakened fully. 

Discerning through sight and sensing movement, action, and location (known as proprioception – it’s present in every muscle movement we have), I experienced graduating shifting segments with colors of various shades of blue, white and yellow. That would be the best way I could describe it.

A movement in motion. As much as I saw them flick though in sequence I felt them to. It was unsettling.

THE CHALLENGE – THE PART WE OFTEN HATE

This is part of the challenge with the gift of discernment, we experience things with our sensors that language struggles to articulate. Can you relate?

Engineering language for experiences and realms we encounter with God has always been an interesting part of the landscape. 

Even Paul wrestled with this when he wrote in 2 Corinthians, “I know a man in Christ about fourteen years ago (whether he was in the body I cannot tell, or whether he was out of the body I cannot tell, God knows) who was taken up into the third heaven.” (2 Corinthians 12:2) 

We’ve been debating for centuries some of what John meant when he was in 3rd heaven because what is in the spiritual realm is hard to find plain language for.

THE LEARNING AND THE MESSAGE

Having experienced this before and as much as it was uncomfortable and sudden to experience, I knew I was discerning a shift, a transition in time. But this time it had movement forward, breakthrough of quick openings.

Transition. Transition. Transition continuously from here said Beni Johnson in 2011. 

Gosh it’s uncomfortable and tiring to be in a constant of state of flux and moving through change hey? 

But when we know why the discomfort, it can make it at least a little easier to experience, and to embrace.

That’s our time now.

THE MISS THAT IS POSSIBLE

In Matthew 16:2-3, Jesus is speaking with the religious leaders of his day when He says to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.“

Jesus is frustrated and calls them out because they do not discern the signs of the times. Standing right in front of them is one of the most speculator signs of the time that the religious leaders had studied for, longed for and now were in danger of missing completely.

The idea of discerning time or its signs was not new to Jesus or these Jewish leaders. In fact it was the gift that had long been on the tribe of Issachar. 

I Chronicles 12:32 says, ”of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do..“

What a gift to their nation and how much do we desperately need such people now! 

When we know what the time is, we know what to do, what to expect. 

Movement is in motion right now. Movement to slip you forward, breakthrough into forward advancing steps. 

Like the gift of Jesus, discernment isn’t always plain or easy. Don’t miss what God has set for you in this time, it may demand work, pull on your humility and require new eyes to see what God has prepared for those who love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9-10

The comfort we hold onto is we never walk alone. He is with us. He has prepared the way.